Nigeria: Menace of Blood Touts in Nigerian Hospitals

IT was a chaotic atmosphere recently at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital's (LASUTH) Bleeding Room when The Guardian exposed the activities of some blood touts to the hospital authorities.

This was after our correspondent stumbled on a number on Naira land Website, with the owner, one Gboyega asking interested commercial blood donors to contact him for an amount of N4, 000 for each donation.

When he was contacted, he agreed to the N5, 000 per donation negotiated by our correspondent, and asked her to meet him at LASUTH very early the next morning.

On getting there as directed the following day, our correspondent was picked by a cleaner and kept in a room waiting for one Hajia who would assist her in the process as ordered by the said Gboyega.

After investigation, it was revealed; it was a network of people at it, both from within the hospital and outside.

Our correspondent, who posed as a sickle cell person wishing to voluntarily donate, finally exposed the names of culprits to the Head of the Section whose name was not mentioned.

Hitherto, it was gathered from one of the laboratory technicians that, due to lack of voluntary blood donation, availability of blood for patients has become scarce.

He explained; "some times we are aware of this blood touts, but with the patients in mind, we have no choice but to take blood from these commercial donors since relatives of patients have paid them.

"And that is where the problem comes from, because you find many relatives of patients not wanting to donate for replacement due to a reason or the other, therefore employing the services of these blood touts," he stressed.

He reiterated that, some relatives pay as much as N20, 000 to these touts and they now pay between four to five thousand Naira to commercial donors, thus they become intermediaries.

Evidently, from the phone conversations with the said Gboyega, asking him to show his face, he said, "you do not need to see me, am just an intermediary, so do not worry, your money will be paid once you show your donation form to the contact person, he added."

It was later gathered that Gboyega's claim as a worker of the hospital was false, but rather his mother, Iya Ijebu is a cleaner at the hospital who was apparently on leave.

Another contact person, Hajia, whom I was directed to, denied knowledge of any of their activities, saying, "Iya Ijebu sent her a text the previous night pleading for her to help the fellow in question (our correspondent) through the donation process and then get money to pay her."

She however claimed she did not know a thing about the whole operation, and that she had warned Iya Ijebu severally against such arrangements.

It was observed, the Head of the Bleeding Room sent some guys away warning them not to come back; else he would get them arrested.

In an interaction with one of the guys sent out, he said "I only donated once here, that was few months back and I want to donate for my auntie now and they send me away that I can not donate."

It was however a different story when our correspondent visited the Lagos University Teaching Hospital's (LUTH), Blood Bank, as people were seen orderly in a queue waiting for their turn to donate.

Relating with few of those on the queue, it was deduced that none was there to donate voluntarily, but to donate in replacement for patients who have used blood in the course of their treatments.

Speaking with one of the workers at the blood bank who pleaded anonymity, she revealed that they also experience the issue of blood touts, but they are mostly found at the gate of the teaching hospital.

She explained; "we do not sell blood here, we only take some money for the purpose of screening, because of its high cost and this was confirmed by a conversation of some relatives on the queue.

"Husbands of all anti - natal patients are mandated to donate blood weather used or not", as this is a form of getting blood because most Nigerians do not donate voluntarily, she noted.

She however showed our correspondent files of few voluntary donors who donate from time to time, and in cases where rare blood groups are needed, these voluntary donors with matched blood types are called upon to help out.

She stressed the low quality of blood among these commercial donors, saying, "most of them are on hard drugs and this affects the quality of the blood."

Relatively, she also regretted the activities of blood touts saying, "Most relatives are scared to donate in replacement for their patients so they pay this blood tout who intend contract commercial donors to donate."

According to her, LUTH at present gets 50 pints of blood a day, and "that is very insufficient to meet the needs of our patients," she added.

When our correspondent contacted the Chairman, Blood Bank Society of Nigeria (BBSN), Dr. Ifionu Bart, he confirmed, "we do not encourage paying for blood, blood is a free commodity given by God and is invaluable, it can not be purchased with money."

He continued, the trend by which people give out money is one of the things we want to stop in the Nigerian society because it is not ideal.

Bart said, as per the World Health Organization's (WHO), standard of blood donation, one per cent of every nation's population is ideal, but records in Nigeria indicates that, blood donation is not even up to 0.5 per cent and this can be linked to myth Nigerians have about blood donation.